ST. PAUL, Minn. — Because Roman Polak had to see a doctor after his late game visit from the Nurse, the NHL came down hard on the Edmonton Oilers.

A team that was already paper thin on defence got even thinner Thursday when the league suspended Darnel Nurse three games for breaking Polak’s nose in a nasty bit of retribution Tuesday night against San Jose.

Nurse, who thought Polak chopped the skates out from under Matt Hendricks, sending the winger crashing into the end boards at high speed, jumped him with 1:40 to go in the third period and beat him bloody.

Referees Tom Kowal and Eric Furlatt didn’t call an instigator on the play, which would have resulted in an automatic one-game suspension, but the league thought it deserved significant supplemental discipline.

“I’m a hard player, I always have been, I like to go out there and stick up for my teammates,” said Nurse, who served the first game of his ban Thursday in Minnesota. “It was probably a little overboard, but I play hard every night.

“As I get older I’ll learn to control my emotions a little better.”

While there’s no doubt he deserved one game for taking an instigator in the last five minutes of regulation, three seems pretty stiff for a first offender. But since he broke Polak’s nose in the incident, the Oilers can kind of understand the severity.

“He got injured and the aggressor rule came into play,” said Nurse. “It happened, I went a little bit overboard. It’s my punishment, I’ll deal with it and move on.”

Asked what he thought about the three games, Polak, who won’t miss any time with the injury, said the punishment fit the crime in this instance.

“I think it’s (fair),” he said, adding he didn’t think anybody from the Oilers would be coming after him for the Hendricks accident. “I was surprised. I didn’t expect that. That was the whole thing. Maybe if I could get my gloves off a little quicker or something and just grab him. But he just jumped me right away.

“So as a result, that’s probably why the league gave him a three game suspension.”

If Nurse hadn’t been so thorough in his aggression, he probably gets off with one game, like Max Domi didn’t for a similar situation that didn’t result in much damage. But Nurse, who is establishing himself as a very good fighter, left Polak a bloody mess.

“I was headed to the bench,” said Polak. “Like I said, I didn’t expect that at all and he just grabs me and starts punching. Not much chance there.”

Oilers head coach Todd McLellan likes that Nurse has the kind of fire in his belly to be first in line to address situations that call for a response, but says he has to adjust a little to the NHL’s new brand of discipline.

“We want our players to stand up for teammates but I think Darnell went about it the wrong way and probably took it a little bit too far,” said McLellan. “It was an emotional situation and Darnell being a young player, has to learn how to manage situations and control his emotions. He’s going to pay the price for it now, we’re not going to argue it. We and he have to live with the consequences.

“The fact he’s willing to step up for his teammates is something we like. The way he went about it is probably the wrong way.”

Nurse says this will likely impact the way he deals with similar situations in the future, but that he’ll never stop fighting for his teammates.

“You have to do it at the right times and the right way,” he said. “It’s a learning process, but you always have to stick up for the guys you play with.”

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